Don't Give Up! Stick With It!
17. Spot for holiday decorations: FRONT YARD.
26. Component of many a 1980s dance performance: MOON WALKING.
53. Fruit-flavored loaf: BANANA BREAD.
62. "Sometimes you feel like a nut" candy: ALMOND JOY.
38. Persevere, or a hint to the ends of the answers to 17-, 26-, 53-, and 62-Across: STICK WITH IT.
This is Juliet's debut crossword at the LA Times!
Across:
1. Outdated marriage vow word: OBEY. A true statement in many cultures.
5. "lol": HE HE. - A restrained laugh. Almost a polite laugh. Ha Ha - Especially when repeated, a more uproarious laugh.
9. Religious divisions: SECTS. Why are there so many branches of various religions? Because they kept having more and more sects.
14. Renown: FAME.
15. Odd's opposite: EVEN.
16. Backless slippers: MULES.
19. Loud, as a crowd: AROAR.
20. As an example: SAY. My wife is always looking out for my best interests and finding new ways to help me out. For instance, one time I mentioned that my sometimes arthritic hands felt a bit relieved when washing the dishes in the hot soapy water. Since then, she has almost always left the dishes for me. What a gal!
21. Tons: OODLES.
23. Pep squad cheer: RAH.
30. Like dark clouds: OMINOUS.
32. Pizza __: pie without tomato sauce: BIANCA. Didn't she marry Mick, and become a Jagger ? Pizza Bianca: J. Kenji López-Alt weighs in.
33. Proofreader's catch, hopefully: TYPO graphical error. As in say, when you intend to compliment your wife by writing to her that she's older and wiser, but you hit the d key instead of the s.
34. Volume of maps: ATLAS.
37. Gooey lump: GOB. Gob is also a slang word for mouth. I learned that from the Everlasting Gobstopper scene in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
42. __ Bath & Beyond: BED. Once thriving. Now struggling to stay afloat.
44. Hang gracefully: DRAPE.
45. Farm tower: SILO.
48. Phrase from Juliet Corless's balcony scene: O ROMEO. "... be but sworn my love"
50. Language arts teacher's concern: GRAMMAR. Say it ain't so! I'm far from a grammar snob, but every time I see someone write "tho", I think "ugh", which happens to be exactly what is missing. I wonder what these people do with all of their free time.
56. Potato growth: EYE.
57. Dot over an "i": TITTLE.
58. Golf peg: TEE.
60. Quartet in many a string orchestra: CELLI.
67. Short-lived: BRIEF.
68. Boyfriend: BEAU.
69. Minecraft or Fortnite: GAME.
70. Run-down: SEEDY.
71. "Now!," in the ICU: STAT. Latin statim - immediately. Right now.
72. Future platypuses: EGGS. No, the plural is not platypi. Interesting about how they find food.
Down:
1. Away from work: OFF. The Offspring. "I wrote her off for the tenth time today"
2. Happy hour locale: BAR. In 80's Houston, Friday "ladies night" at the nightclubs and dance clubs drew the biggest crowds.
3. My Chemical Romance genre: EMO.
4. Strong longings: YENS.
5. "Psst!": HEY YOU.
6. "Girl in Progress" actress Mendes: EVA. Eva and Ryan
7. Long-legged wader: HERON.
8. Fund on an ongoing basis: ENDOW.
9. Sorta tiny: SMALLISH.
10. Shout of discovery: EUREKA. I've heard it in old movies. I know it more as the cities in Missouri and California.
11. Semisonic hit with the lyrics "You don't have to go home / But you can't stay here": CLOSING TIME.
12. Tazo beverage: TEA.
13. 20th century map inits.: SSR. Click to enlarge.
18. __-shanter: Scottish cap: TAM O'. I golfed with and bowled against this guy ('s childhood friend and high school teammate). 😉
22. Blot with a tissue: DAB AT.
23. Biodegrade: ROT.
24. Advice columnist Dickinson: AMY. Don't know, don't care. Not trying to be mean. It's simply that I have no interest in the typical subject matter of advice columnists.
25. Shakira's only #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100: HIPS DON'T LIE. Her elementary school choir teacher rejected her, and her classmates said she sang like a goat. Who is laughing now?
27. 2019 and 2021 Australian Open winner Naomi: OSAKA.
28. Staff sgt., e.g.: NCO. An enlisted rank of E-5 in the Air Force. In the Army, a Staff Sergeant is an E-6.
29. Gift of __: GAB.
31. "__ on my watch!": NOT.
35. County div.: TWP. Township.
36. Feudal lord: LIEGE.
39. Call by name: IDENTIFY.
40. Zagreb native: CROAT.
41. Belief system suffix: ISM.
42. Short cut: BOB.
43. Memorable historical period: ERA.
46. Install, as tiles: LAY.
47. Mined metal: ORE.
49. Sent, as a postcard: MAILED. How quaint. Regardless, sending and receiving handwritten mail adds a personal touch that seems to be missing in emails and texts.
51. Snitch on: RAT OUT. Tattles ?
52. Yemen's Gulf of __: ADEN.
54. Says too much: BLABS. Tattles ?
55. Find a new tenant for: RELET.
59. One of 12 on a cube: EDGE.
60. "Blue Bloods" TV network: CBS.
61. Before, in classic poetry: ERE.
63. Goat's bleat: MAA. They thought Shakira sounded like a goat ?
64. High-end British car, for short: JAG. In Pittsburgh and Chicago, the word and its derivatives have a different meaning.
65. "No. Way.": OMG. Did you hear oxygen and magnesium got together? They had a certain chemistry. It's OMg.
66. "That's right": YES.
Yes, that's right. I was asked to sub today. Unbelievable, right ? I thought Dash T was the sub. When will we see him again ?
The Grid:
33 comments:
Oh, to be a dog for a bit!
Frolic in the FRONT YARD or sit
By master's side
At Christmastide,
And get a ball, and a STICK WITH IT!
EVEN if my FAME is SMALLISH,
It would not my ego demolish,
If a critic
Did not dig it,
And insist my l'icks need polish.
“He he” instead of “Ha ha”? Seems a little suspect. On the other hand, “Closing Time” happens to be one of my favorite songs. The songwriter, Don Wilson, has admitted it has symbolic meaning. Other than that, it seemed much like a Tuesday-level puzzle. FIR, so I’m happy.
Good morning!
Ya fooled me, TTP. I thought it was Dash-T, until I got to AMY Dickinson. Tony would've recognized her as a frequent WWDTM participant. D-o went through the EGRET/CRANE/HERON morphsperience, but otherwise the grid is clean. I enjoyed it, Juliet. Good to see you back in the saddle, if only as a temp, TTP.
FIR. Mostly smooth crossword, except for twp as an abbreviation for township. Never heard of it? The theme came early but added little to my solve. Just another Tuesday puzzle.
I was able to finish this one in 4:54 today, chop, chop.
"Closing Time" is a very good song.
I didn't know Bianca, and thought blanca made sense, but "smallish" had to be correct.
Often, I feel as though I am not "off" even when I am away from work.
Yeah, it's a Tuesday puzzle.
FIR, but erased bianco for BIANCA. Theme was easy after reading the reveal. Meta clue from Juliet @ "Phrase from Juliet's balcony scene."
TTP - I didn't know The Offspring had any hits other than Come Out and Play (keep them separated).
The Oakridge Boys did a gospel version of You Don't Have To Go Home (But You Can't Stay Here).
I love Pink Floyd's Hey You.
TTP made me look - no, the Eagles didn't exactly sing
"Desperation in the singles bars
An' all those JAGoffs in their fancy cars"
in their hit Those Shoes.
I knew TWP from bopping around Chicago suburbs while attending telco training. Looked odd on signs at first, but it was easy to get used to. Naperville TWP was where a lot of the training was held.
Thanks, TTP for the fun pinch-hit appearance. Hope to read you again soon.
What can I say? Another FIR on Juliet's fine debut puzzle. And I wonder, is O ROMEO just a coincidence? Inquiring minds....
I got the theme with help of the reveal and some WOs. Before I decorated the FRONT YARD, I decorated the FRONT door. Also, I was STICKing to, until it didn't fit. Noticing I had GOB twice (a puzzle NoNo), I realized I needed BIANCA to match Pizza's A ending. HEHE, I tried to tEHE, but in the end all was well.
OK, TTP, you got me! I knew it wasn't Anon-T, but had guessed D-Otto because of the Texas reference and humor. Well done in every way!
TITTLE makes me giggle.
Hope everyone has a jolly day!
Sorry, I misspoke. The lead singer (and main lyricist) of Semisonic is DAN Wilson not DON Wilson, just FYI.
What does FIR stand for?
Anon@9:08AM
FIR means Finished It Right
Other abbreviations used here on the Crossword Corner can be found at the bottom of the comment section. Click on the blue link Comments Section Abbrs to see them.
Anon@9:08AM
PS, if you are on the web site instead of your phone, look to the right of the blog under OLIO for the link.
Good Morning:
I saw the theme before the reveal when I noticed the Yard and Walking endings, but the reveal phrasing was still a fun surprise. I wasn’t familiar with Closing Time or Hips Don’t Lie but perps were fair throughout the grid. I liked the theme and reveal but there were too many of my pet peeves to ignore, namely, 29 three letter words, 6 fill-in-the blank clues, 4 ordinary words with proper name clues, and a few unnecessarily long clues, especially the 16 word clue for 11D, a 2 word answer. How about “7-11’s original 11?”
Thanks, Juliet, for a Tuesday treat and congrats on your debut and thanks, TTP, for pinch-hitting so successfully. It was nice to “hear” your voice again.
Have a great day.
Cute Tuesday puzzle. FIR. I had Baa for MAA, but the ALMOND corrected that.
I too tried BlANCA, but had to correct that.
TWP? We don’t even have counties here.
Texting jargon always gets me. OMG for No. Way. Perps worked that out for me.
I too thought A-t would be subbing, but right away knew better. Thanks TTP for subbing. It’s so much fun recognizing everyone’s style.
Blanco b/4 Bianca, but I stuck with it...
Dad joke of the day:
What's brown and sticky?
Honorable mention,
If you want a stick, you have to stick with it.
Good Morning! Congrats, Juliet! on your debut. I enJOYed your puzzle.
I occasionally indulge in a Mounds Bar (dark chocolate) but wish they would put an almond in it!
The upper middle was the last to fill. I paused at FRONT-door? step? Ahh, YARD.
And I echo previous comments, egret/HERON; blanca/BIANCA.
TITTLE was ESP.
Thanks, TTP, for your recap. Loved your TYPO tale but must part ways with you on your GRAMMAR comment. I’m not a fan of the “ugh” word endings but had to smile at your snark.
FIR, but completely missed the the theme again. Fixated on the leading word, and didn't pick up sticks until TTP sent the V-8 can. What Irish Miss said about the clues.
Thank you Juliet FIR a perfect puzzle - you certainly didn't leave us out in the STICKS. And congrats on your debut! We wish you many happy returns.
And thanks TTP for a perfect review. You certainly had me fooled, getting -T's DAD jokes down pat, as SAY the one for 9A SECTS. But I shoulda' guessed, as I suspect that he's still a bit young for arthritis.
A few favs:
16A MULES. DNK. A new clue for this one?
33A TYPO. A CSO to my DW.
37A GOB. I had the same conflict as AG, but mined was GOD/GOD.
32A BIANCA. I had BIANCO, the name of our Cathedral rector, until I realized that he didn't match the gender of PIZZA.
57A TITTLE. New to me. DIACRITICAL was too long.
10D EUREKA. My first recollection of this word was the exclamation by the Greek Archimedes when he sussed the principle of specific gravity, realizing the King's crown had been hacked. Things did not go well for the King's goldsmith.
65D OMG. My COD (OCD with the letters in the right order) tells me that should be MgO ("I before E" and metals before non-metals)
Cheers,
Bill
Hola!
EUREKA! This was a quick puzzle! Thank you, Juliet and TTP. Good job, TTP, but I did not recognize your style.
I love ALMOND JOY bars! Of course they are taboo for me now.
Having taught GRAMMAR for many, many years I'm acutely aware of any problems but I hold my tongue and sometimes I even bite it! LAY is often the cause of many mistakes in GRAMMAR.
I also love BED, Bath and Beyond but there is only so much that I can buy though I wish I could shop there every day.
Can anyone tell me what has happened to Lemonade, aka Jason? Maybe I missed something.
Have a glorious day, everyone!
(Wherefore)ART THO(u) didn't fit
The King James version read
"one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Mathew 5:18
Archimedes shouted it(EUREKA) from his bathtub
The NCO Club hosted E4(Corporals) and E5. E6 and up at Staff NCO Club
D-Otto, no STORK in your avian lexicon? Lots of ink wasted on that one
Different voice on the write-up but discovering it was TTP was a treat
FIR
Celtics go for #2 tonight
And…
Up in J-Ville the JAGs play NFL football
Delightful Tuesday puzzle, many thanks, Juliet. And enjoyed your commentary, TTP, thanks for that too.
Hard not to wonder if Juliet's lovely puzzle, featuring ROMEO, wasn't meant to give us a story about romance. You can imagine the BEAU coming to her FRONT YARD in the evening and shouting HEY YOU to AMY and then taking her MOON WALKING around the neighborhood, stopping at a BAR. There they were able to play a GAME, and EVEN get something to eat, maybe some BANANA BREAD and some EGGS, along with some TEA to drink, while some musicians were playing their CELLI. Not a bad way to spend a first date.
Have a good day, everybody.
Terrific puzzle and write-up. Thanks, Juliet for a fun debut!
Kelly <---echoing ATLGranny's giggle at TITTLE :-)
Thanks.
Wilbur Charles Thank you for the Biblical reference of TITTLE. It is from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one TITTLE shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."
This is generally understood to mean that he is asking that his followers continue to follow every detail of Jewish law.
From Sunday:
Tante Nique, Bill Seeley, AnonT Thank you for your comments regarding ATOMS and my SKATE PARK video. I respectfully doubt that our esteemed editor has any idea about the Bohr MODEL.
A Corless XWD presented by (a full Core?) TTP...
My part time college job was selling women's shoes on weekends and Thursday nights--on Market Street in San Francisco.
That's how I learned about MULES, but never understood why that name was attached to backless shoes & slippers.
Any idea, anybody?
And I could never understand why someone would prefer a Mounds Bar to ALMOND JOY.
I mean, you could always throw the almonds away--right? --or donate them to the unhoused on your block.
Without pausing to do the math, I entered EYES for 59D--only wondering why the pips would need another name. I corrected to EDGE in time, but did anyone else make the same mistake?
~ OMK
____________
DR: Two diagonals, one to a side.
On the near end, the anagram (12 of 15) refers to the muscular base of the Great White Shark.
Something to remind us puny land-lubbing mortals of our relatively weak bipedal structures...
"JAWS' MESODERM"!
Musings
-Just back after a very windy 18 holes. At least the frost is gone and we can get a TEE into the ground.
-Speaking of numbers, five, count ‘em, five fun themers!
-Atlases and Encyclopedias are becoming anachronisms
-People have said I am OFF even when I am there!
-Yes, Wilbur, Archimedes made this exclamation when he discovered finding volume by displacement
-Handwritten – I tried to write a cursive note to a teacher for whom I was subbing yesterday. Talk about “use it or lose it”. What’s worse, I used a pen!
Hi All!
Juliet, your puzzle was not a STICK in the mud. Thanks and congrats on the debut.
Thanks for stepping up to the plate and explaining TWP, TTP. I loved the music, the OMG joke, and the jagoff link. You should sub more ;-)
WOs: OOO (Out-Of-Office) -> OFF, HaHa, FRONT room, CELLo,
ESPs: TITTLE, TWP, HIPS DON’T LIE.
Fav: Juliet got her ROMEO in the grid.
{A, A+}
I grew-up downstate, IL (read: "everything that's not Chicago") and we'd always get in trouble for saying jagoff because it sounded like, well, youknowwhat - I guess no one (Mom) knew the etymology.
TWP - looks like text-speak for twerp.
I only know AMY Dickinson 'cuz she is often on WWDTM's panel. (LOL D-O!)
Jinx - I have Smash (the album with Come out and Play). It took them four years to drop the next album but by then I had a kid and ...
//before kids, I'd buy five or six albums a month. After kids, it was per year if that. Good pick for Hey You.
Waseeley - OMG! But then the joke doesn't work.
OML - 'cuz the dark chocolate on Mounds goes better with the coconut.
Cheers, -T
Congrats to Juliet on her debbut! ATLGranny@8:44 asks a good question.
65D&66D were fun neighbor clues.
I got hung up when I misread "persevere" as "preserve". Oof! I eventually worked it out for a FIR.
I had always pictured a platypus was about racoon-sized so I was surprised when I saw one in real life (in a zoo). It was much smaller than I was expecting.
Thanks, TTP for explaining TWP! I enjoyed your write-up -- lots of good laughs & music!!
Fun puzzle, interesting write-up! Thank you Juliet and TTP. Front door/FRONT YARD, haha/HEHE. I like the British “I SAY!”, often heard from Capt. Hastings on Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.
TTP Thank you for the picture of Payne Stewart, a favorite. Sad event. I’m sure you have some good stories.
Lucinda @10:49 - I can still hear my father, a grammarian, say “You lay the book down, the book lies there”. ALMOND JOY bars are good but nothing beats a Zagnut.
Flipping through the TV channels a few years ago, I saw a performance by someone who’s name I had heard but a singer I had never seen - Shakira. This is the only time I have seen her. She was singing HIPS DON’T LIE. Well, truthfully, she was doing very little singing but her hips were getting a real workout!
IM @10:01 - Never heard of Semisonic so I had to wait for other letters. Your clue for CLOSING TIME is very clever!
I enjoyed this puzzle, but I agree with everything Irish Miss said.
I also agree that LOL, which, as we all know, stands for Laugh Out Loud, is much more like a HAHA than a HEHE.
I did learn something that I might remember, that the CELLI are a quartet in many a string orchestra, which I assume means there are four of them. In a full orchestra I believe there are more than four.
I love the clue for EGGS!
In England they call an advice columnist an "agony aunt."
I used to live in Lower Moreland TWP, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. I also lived in Valley Township in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
I have wondered how Serbo-CROATian can be a language when the CROATs use the Roman alphabet and the Serbs use the Cyrillic alphabet.
TTP, your oxygen and magnesium joke made me Laugh Out Loud.
Good wishes to you all.
Parsan @5:05 PM I beg to differ. Nothing beats a Berger Cookie.
Earlier, I went on Twitter to tweet Juliet about The Corner. She doesn't have an (obvious) account. But, I did suss-out that she lives in NJ, attends Princeton (where she contributes to the uni's paper's crossword), graduated from HS 2yrs ago (where she pitched on the softball team), National Merit scholar, and had her first puzzle published in NYT last November, 3rd.
Impressive kid!
Cheers, -T
Anon-T, in case you missed it today is the 10th anniversary of the induction of Rush into the Rock'n Roll HoF in a ceremony in LA
WC
Good morning. Yesterday was a very long day for me. I finally got to read the comments, starting at just after 5 AM this morning. Thank you all for the kind comments. I am happy that you enjoyed the pictures, videos, links and humor.
TWP - Township(s): Blame or credit the Pilgrims for bringing this concept of municipal government to this country. By order of the Mayflower Compact, townships became the first municipal subdivision in the new world.
Below the city level, boroughs and then townships are the lowest levels of municipal governments in PA.
Fun fact. PA does not have towns. Plural. It has a town. One. There is one town in the entire state. Bloomsburg.
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